Fiction bending reality in new books by Thomas Pynchon, Olivia Laing and Jeanette Winterson

This week, Cassie McCullagh and Jonathan Green take a look at Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket - a cryptic plunge into paranoia and power, where nothing is quite what it seems. Plus, Olivia Laing’s The Silver Book, a shimmering meditation on the cinema scene in 1970s Italy, and Jeanette Winterson’s One Aladdin Two Lamps, which re-imagines duality and the stories we tell ourselves. BOOKS Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon (Jonathan Cape) The Silver Book by Olivia Laing (Hamish Hamilton) One Aladdin Two Lamps by Jeanette Winterson (Penguin Random House) GUESTS Huw Griffiths — Associate Professor and Deputy Head of School in English and Writing at the University of Sydney Claire Mabey — Founder of New Zealand’s literary festival Verb Wellington, books editor at The Spinoff, and author of the award-winning middle-grade novel The Raven's Eye Runaways. Its sequel, The Raven’s Eye Rebellion, is due in April next year. OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED Naomi Arnold, Northbound Nadine Huder, Slowing the Sun Thomas Mann, Death in Venice Seán Hewitt, Open Heaven Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials trilogy - The Rose Field Ruby Tandoh, All Consuming: Why We Eat the Way We Eat Now CREDITS Presenter, Cassie McCullagh and Jonathan Green Producer, Cassie McCullagh and Sarah Corbett Sound engineer, Beth Stewart Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown